I am an incoming freshman and today I attempted to confirm my schedule as requested by the University (deadline August 8). As a National Merit Scholar at the University, I expected that the Office of Receivables would not request any money from me as part of my package is the Presidential Scholarship, which covers $12.5k in tuition--the average tuition amount calculated at cost.ua.edu.
To my surprise, the Office of Receivables is reporting that I need to pay (or defer) a balance of $1,875 before confirming my schedule! Does any know why I am being asked to pay or defer this charge?
I have a few potential causes already:
1) I am currently registered for 5 classes or a total of 16 credit hours--the maximum "normal" amount of hours that is possible. Could it be that my 5 classes are simply exceeding the "average" amount of $12.5k that is also the amount given in my "full tuition" scholarship?
2) The Student Receivables page that I am looking at indicates absolutely nothing about what the source of this $1,875 balance is. Is it possible that this $1.9k is from course FEES (not tuition), which are NOT covered by the Presidential/Nat'l Merit scholarship?
3) After some rather extensive searching on the various UA webpages, I found a FAQ item (no link currently, sorry) that said that scholarship recipients could ignore the confirmation request and their balance would automatically be paid--HOWEVER, take this with a grain of salt because the FAQ item was very vaguely written and gave no specifics. If anyone has any knowledge of this potential policy please let me know.
4) Could it be that this $1.9k is related to the required freshman meal plan (about $1.6k) and course fees combined? It seems like they would total to about $1.9k...
Aside from these theories, I am oblivious as to why $1.9k dollars is being requested of me under a "full tuition" scholarship and more than a little annoyed at the terrible disclosure of the source of this balance. I would have expected better, clearer treatment by the university given the rarity of my scholarship and the supposed value placed on it. Apparently I was wrong.
I would have already contacted the Office of Student Receivables instead of posting on this forum, but they are already closed for the week. I will contact them as soon as I wake up on Monday.
I am not informing my parents about this because I don't like the idea of my dad's fury at a $1.9k mystery charge when my tuition is SUPPOSEDLY fully paid.
Thanks for any responses, and (despite my current ire with the University) Roll Tide,
Daniel
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